


there is no place for grief in a house which serves the muse

by Lacerta26



Series: In the crooks of your body, I find my religion [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 1930s, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Moving In Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacerta26/pseuds/Lacerta26
Summary: 1936: Thomas and Richard in their new home.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Series: In the crooks of your body, I find my religion [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045792
Comments: 7
Kudos: 80





	there is no place for grief in a house which serves the muse

**Author's Note:**

> This follows on directly from part 3 but it didn't tonally work so I separated them out. 
> 
> tbh this is just porn and you don't really need to have read the other parts for this to make sense. Basically, Richard and Thomas have moved in together!
> 
> Title from Sappho, again.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)

York, Spring, 1936 

Richard is humming as he carries Thomas’s suitcase up the stairs and Thomas follows still feeling something like a guest. 

There are hints of Richard’s mother throughout the downstairs rooms although Richard has packed away most of her things. Thomas has been in this house twice before, once when Mrs Ellis was alive and once after she had died. Now it’s Richard house. His and Richard’s. 

Richard is whistling. 

‘What’s made you so cheerful?’ Thomas says, caught on the landing looking at a photograph of Richard’s parents. He has his mother’s eyes, his father’s chin. 

Richard spreads his arms as he walks backwards into the master bedroom, ‘you, here. Us, in our home.’

The bed is unmade but Thomas keeps walking forward until Richard is forced to sit down onto it, laughing, the lines around his eyes making him look distinguished, as handsome as the day they met. He runs a hand through Richard’s hair, separating the strands, scratching gently against his scalp.

‘Thank you.’ 

‘For what?’ Richard takes hold of Thomas’s wrist, stilling his hand, his thumb rubbing circles on Thomas’s pulse point. 

‘For making this a home for us.’

The afternoon sun bathes the room in golden light and the kiss is natural, easy, Thomas’s knee up on the bed to push Richard’s back onto it and Richard laughing into his mouth and holding him close. 

‘I thought you said we were getting too old for this,’ Richard rolls them side by side on the mattress, lying so close together Thomas can’t look into both of his eyes at once, ‘in the middle of the day.’

‘It’s a special occasion,’ Thomas kisses him, his leg between Richard’s thighs, to hear him gasp and roll his hips into the feeling. Richard is already hard, because he’s ridiculously eager and two years younger, as he never fails to mention, but it makes Thomas feel good. _I did that to him, he wants me and he can have me, he can have me in our_ home. 

‘Hmmm. Lucky me.’ 

Richard rolls them again so he’s straddling Thomas’s thighs and begins unbuttoning Thomas’s shirt, ever so slowly, always a tease. The first time they did this, or something like it, six months after they met, in a dingy hotel in London it was rushed, frenetic, and all the more pleasurable for it, a release after so long waiting to be near each other. Now they have time with no work to get back to today and walls that are a little more than paper thin. It’s a luxury and one Thomas intends to make the most of until it’s just another mundane fact of their new life. 

He sits up, hands at Richard waist to kiss him still, rocking their hips together, friction and heat coalescing between them. 

‘What would you like?’

‘Just you,’ Richard has his eyes closed, his hands still bunched in Thomas’s shirt, distracted by kissing and the feel of them pressed together.

‘You could have made the bed first,’ Thomas nips at Richard’s jaw, feeling the scratch of his stubble, the movement of his adam’s apple when he swallows. 

‘I was waiting for you.’

‘To do the chores? I’m not here to be your wife,’ he doesn’t even sound petulant; he would be Richard’s wife, if he wanted. 

‘No, but you could be my husband,’ Richard is smiling, teasing, but Thomas stops the slow exploration he’s been making of Richard’s neck.

‘Truly?’

Richard shrugs, easy, one cheek ticking up with a smile, ‘of course. I am your husband and you are mine.’ 

Nearly fifty years old and still blushing like a callow youth, Thomas looks away, ‘there’s no need to say such things, when you already have me in your bed.’

‘I know but I should like to make sure you have reason to stay,’ Richard tips Thomas’s chin up with a finger, forces him to look, forces him to accept the sincerity of the moment. 

The next kiss is deep, fierce, Thomas clings to Richard, holds him tight and tries not to cry. When they break apart Richard smiles, runs his thumbs across Thomas’s cheekbones, kisses him there, but there are no tears because Thomas is as happy as he’s ever been or is ever likely to be.

‘Of course I’ll stay.’

Thomas moves so Richard has to stand up and he uses the momentum as a momentary distraction to start unbuttoning Richard’s trousers, slipping his hand inside to feel where he’s hard and wanting. Richard closes his eyes and submits to Thomas undressing him; from now on the only men they’ll help into their clothes, and more importantly, out of them, will be each other. 

‘Am I allowed to even the score?’ Richard tugs at Thomas’s vest, warm fingers on his flanks, stepping close to kiss his neck.

‘This time,’ Thomas concedes. 

‘This time, is it?’ Richard chuckles, he knows how much Thomas likes it, to be clothed when Richard isn’t. What that reveals about his psyche Thomas can only guess at but the feel of it, rough wool and soft cotton, heightened in comparison to the warmth and smoothness of bare skin, and the way he can set aside his own pleasure to focus on Richard, wholly and without distraction, is a feeling he never gets tired of. Not today, though, with Richard pulling at his clothes impatiently, trying to get them all off him at once, getting him caught in shirt and sock and vest. 

Undressed, finally, Thomas goes to his knees, looking up at Richard, at the firm, clean lines of his body, hardly any softness to belie his age, smiling down at him as Thomas takes him into his mouth. 

Against Thomas’s tongue Richard’s prick is like velvet, all of his senses overwhelmed, taste and touch and the smell of Richard’s cologne and his sweat and the feel of his hands in Thomas’s hair.

He starts slowly, tongue at the tip, only a delicate touch to make Richard gasp. Thomas is greedy for the sounds he can pull from Richard when he does this, the harsh breaths and plosive consonants; if he ever makes Richard swear in bed it’s because of this act and he can never get enough. It’s vulnerable, to be sure, but there’s power here too, a give and take like no other because it’s a gift to make someone fall apart like this. He can let his mind go quiet, focus only on the physical: grainy floorboards under his knees and the hairs on Richard’s thighs against the palms of his hands, the heaviness of Richard’s prick on his tongue, in his throat, his own cock hard but ignored, for the moment. 

Richard’s hands are still in his hair, gentle and guiding, as Thomas moves forward to take his prick fully into his mouth, deep, and - 

‘ _Fuck.’_

There it is. 

Thomas hums a laugh, the vibration translating into the movement of his mouth, his tongue along Richard’s cock as he pulls back, then forward again. He runs his tongue down the whole length, mouths at him, unstructured and random, just reveling in the taste, salt tang and so familiar, until he reaches the base, kneels up to kiss across Richard’s stomach, his hips. 

Richard strokes Thomas’s jaw, his thumb at the corner of Thomas’s mouth, ‘look at you.’ 

His hands are gentle but they keep Thomas in place as he draws back to lap the taste beading at the tip of Richard’s prick, one hand around the length of him, a steady stroke, up and down, in time with the movement of his tongue. 

Richard’s gone back to murmuring nonsense, his body tense, rocking his hips almost imperceptibly, dragging the head of his cock between Thomas’s lips, his breath shallow and all Thomas can do is take him deeper. Holding his hand to the base of him, he cups his bollocks with a gentle palm, a distraction, and one to make Richard moan. It sends a shiver of pleasure down Thomas’s spine, to hear again how he can make Richard feel, but he has to see it too, he has to _know_. 

Looking up is a mistake. Richard’s head is tipped back, his mouth open in pleasure, lost. It’s an astonishing sight and, god, does it make Thomas _want._

He wants to make Richard come like this, he wants to drink him down, swallow him up, feel his come dripping from his face, in his hand, all of it, at once and now he can have it. He doesn’t have to choose, doesn’t have to worry about where they are or how much time they have. Whatever they don’t do tonight they can do tomorrow or the next day or the next. They haven’t even really made it to the bed yet, but it doesn’t matter, they have all the time in the world for that, and for now Thomas on his knees and Richard standing by an _open door_ is perfect. 

Richard strokes a hand through Thomas’s hair, sounding breathy and distracted, ‘darling,’ and Thomas swallows, breathes in through his nose and sets to work taking him apart. 

It doesn’t take long, Richard sways forward on unsteady legs chasing the pleasure of Thomas sucking him, eager and close and Thomas tips his head, settles into the feeling of Richard’s cock nudging at the back of his throat. It’s all encompassing, his mouth so full, he can’t help but whine, easing his jaw wider, clutching hard at Richard’s thighs, not even moving now, just holding Richard’s prick in his mouth, swallowing around him until he has to breathe, pulling back, gasping.

‘Love, Thomas, _Thomas,’_ Richard’s looking at him in awe, voice a croak, ‘you’re so good to me. I want -, can I -’

He’s nodding before Richard’s even finished his sentence, whatever he wants he can have, opening his mouth again, tongue to the underside of Richard’s prick and that’s enough, apparently because Richard is coming before he’s even closed his mouth. Thomas swallows it all down, greedily, laps at Richard’s cock, not wasting a drop, feeling Richard soften into oversensitivity and pull away. 

Sitting back on his haunches, breathing hard, like he’s the one who’s just come, aching, desperate for Richard who sinks to his knees to kiss him so thoroughly it’s like he’s trying to take back the taste of himself. 

‘If I thought you had the patience I’d ask you to fuck me with that but somehow I don’t think that’ll be happening tonight,’ says Richard, a smile in his voice, as he draws one finger up Thomas’s prick. The touch is light, almost imperceptible, but it has Thomas’s thighs twitching, a moan in the back of his throat, overwhelmed. 

‘It’s ok, love. Do you want my mouth or my hand?’ 

Thomas thinks about it, sinking into the wet heat of Richard’s mouth, but he wants to look into Richard’s eyes, feel his arms around him. 

‘Hand, I think.'

Richard draws Thomas to his feet and back on to the bed, pressing kisses to his shoulders and collarbones, a balm for the heat of his skin. The mattress is cool and the room darker now the sun has sunk below the roofline of the houses around them, the sky streaked with red. Thomas takes in these details, his suitcase by the wardrobe, the sheets and blankets folded on the chair in the corner like they weren’t there before and have only begun to exist now his attention isn’t solely on Richard. 

Richard who is easing him onto his back, touch light and voice soft, until Thomas feels cared for, coddled and ready to be touched again. 

‘Start slow, yes?’

Thomas nods, anticipating the first touch of Richard’s hand as one would diving into cold water, waiting for the shock of it and the exhilaration, too, but now that the focus is on him he finds that he’s been on edge so long his pleasure is at something of a remove, sparking under his skin but distant, just out of reach. The noise he makes is closer to discomfort and Richard immediately takes his hand a way, which is somehow worse. 

‘It’s ok, love,’ Richard says again, ‘here.’

He moves to lie beside Thomas, shifting until they are chest to chest, a tangled arrangement of limbs, one leg between Thomas’s thighs.

They begin moving as one and the sensation isn’t so intense, a pleasant ache rather than a painful one. Usually when they do this they’re both hard, both wanting as much as each other but Richard is spent and not young enough to turn it around so quickly, no matter what he says. It makes him soft, pliant, a warm willing body for Thomas to rut against, his prick in the crease between Richard’s hip and thigh and with Richard kissing him open mouthed and inelegant it’s easy to lose focus on anything other than that, kissing and kissing with no thought to escalation. 

Thomas moans, involuntary, high in his throat and Richard runs a hand down his back, firm fingers digging into the meat of his arse and gripping where arse meets thigh to control the rhythm, thrusting back himself now, quicker and sweatier and perfect. The tension is winding up nicely, Thomas needs to do nothing but kiss and move as his body tells him to, the friction and the warmth of Richard’s body pulling him closer to the edge. 

‘That’s it, take what you want.’

What Thomas wants is Richard like this, all the time, or as much as their new life will allow, giving him what he _needs._

'Come on, love,' Richard whispers and that what does it.

Thomas sinks into the delirious lassitude of his release, eyes closed, shaking, gasping near silent into the space between Richard neck and shoulder. It feels like his climax starts at the top of his head and the tips of his toes, sweeping slowly through his body and out, painting Richard with come. It's everywhere, unfocused and intense, and it keeps coming even though he’s spent, held close and wanted.

They’re still for some time, breathing hard, and Thomas has no desire to move, no desire to sort out the mess they’ve created, all he wants is to stay here in Richard’s arms until, by mutual agreement, their grip on each other relaxes and they sink side by side onto the mattress. Thomas hasn’t come that hard since he was a much younger man, he’s _exhausted,_ ecstatic, in love and happy, unburdened for once in his life. 

‘Will you miss it?’ says Richard beside him, apropos of nothing.

‘Hmm?’ Thomas still has his eyes closed, a hand on Richard’s arm, their legs overlapping.

‘Downton?’

Thomas shifts so he can look at Richard’s face, sees the concern there. Richard, by now, has heard everything about Thomas’s time at Downton, the good and the bad, but he’s left the pain of those thirty years behind him. He can admit that he’ll miss the place and the people knowing that leaving was the best thing he’s ever done. 

‘How could I not? I might never have met you if it wasn’t for Downton.’

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr!](https://lacerta26.tumblr.com)


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